NVIDIA 196.75 drivers causing PC and Graphic Cards to overheat

Update – 11:00pm EST: I reached NVIDIA’s PR for an official statement and they replied within the hour. Read their response and feedback from many gamers here.

Original post – 5:20pm EST: I want to warn all of our visitors who are participating in the StarCraft II Beta and play World of WarCraft to refrain from installing the latest NVIDIA WHQL 196.75 WHQL-certified drivers. As posted, in the StarCraft: IncGamers fansite, If you already installed it, uninstall it and downgrade to the previous version. Yeah, it’s that serious. Many players are reporting their PCs or graphic card have died. It also affects all Blizzard games, so heed the call and safe your hardware’s life.

According to Blizzard’s Tech Support the latest NVIDIA drivers are causing fan control to not work correctly and causes massive overheat. StarCraft II Beta might kill your PC or card literally. A fix is already in the works. Stay tuned for further updates.

Blizzard Quote:

We’re getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers. It seems that it is related to the fan control included in these drivers not working correctly and is causing the video card to overheat on 3D applications. This will affect Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Please uninstall the drivers and revert back to the older ones.